


Son Goku in the Underworld

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Saiyuki, Saiyuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25641061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: Sanzo's life is shit, and his life's work is going to hell in a handbasket. All it takes to change everything is a Monkey King with amazing talents.
Relationships: Cho Hakkai/Sha Gojyo, Genjo Sanzo/Son Goku
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Son Goku in the Underworld

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kirathaune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirathaune/gifts).



> Written for the 2012 7th Night Smut Saiyuki AU giftfic exchange on Dreamwidth for Kirathaune and the prompt of Son Goku as an artist. 
> 
> This is the first and only time I've written this pairing, so I hope I've hit the sweet spot. 
> 
> Thank you to Whymzycal for her incredible gift as the most patient and kind of betas. Any mistakes and icky parts are all my fault.

The balmy evening in June was the perfect end for a festival. Colourful marquees and pavilions were set up across the island. Flower baskets, balloons, streamers, garlands and bunting were strung up to both ornament and cordon off pathways and areas for foot traffic and gatherings. Fountains in the lagoons had been switched from simple circulation to full-on Riverdance with different gushers kicking up rhythms and patterns. Delicious scents of roasted meats, ginger, garlic, smoked chilies and unusual spices wafted off the fleet of food trucks. Children who had chased around all day like pinballs in an old fashioned arcade game started to settle down. As a result, Sanzo tried not to grind down his temporary replacement crown with the frustration of it all since the orthodontist had warned him twice about permanent damage to his jaw.

“Don’t blow a gasket, Sunshine.” The old hag who supervised him had a lapel in one iron-fisted grip, with her bony knee tucked nearly between his thighs and dangerously close to his privates for backup. He never wanted to wear this stupid tuxedo, boutonnière and top-hat, especially in 80°-plus summer temperatures, but she insisted that it was tradition and he wasn’t going to embarrass them in front of all the visiting dignitaries. Kanzeon was wrestling with a really large pin, trying to fix some frilly frou-frou to the ridiculous penguin-suit, and Sanzo knew he could only protest so much before she decided to stick it in‒

“OW, fuck!” He dropped his first f-bomb of the quarter-hour. “I’m not your voodoo doll. OW, what the‒!”

She had smacked him. 

“Language, Sweetums. Children are present, and Public Works won't field any more complaints from irate parents about how we haven’t yet stuck a muzzle over that bad-doggy mouth of yours,” she hissed. The smack stung. She packed quite a wallop for such a modestly sized Fascist Dictator. “I know you aren’t used to going out in public, but do try to pretend you can be civil.”

Sanzo was trying so hard not to let his fists fly, he resorted to an old stress-relieving trick: reciting the Periodic Table of Elements under his breath. He got all the way to ‘piss-me-off-ium’ and ‘kill-the-witch-ium’ before Kanzeon managed to finish and he had to think of any others.

“There you go.” The harridan patted him on the chest. “You look very handsome. Actually, you always look handsome, but tails suit you. They turn you into a kind of scowly, rude, surly, short and short-tempered Fred Astaire.”

“Shut-the-ffff‒!”

“One more naughty word from you—” a long, glossy fingernail nearly pronked him up the nostril “— and there will be a Rogers-&-Astaire song-and-dance routine in your future; by that, I mean with me as part of tonight’s entertainment for the hoi-polloi and I always lead. 

“Here.” She passed him a small cardboard box wrapped in white paper. “This is your portion of the picnic supper our sponsors have kindly provided for us. Go on!” 

He recoiled, so she clicked her tongue with derision.

“I’m pretty sure they haven’t poisoned or drugged it, although I can see where that would make their job easier, but hello! It’s got your initials on it and everything. Go eat your fried chicken and potato salad and drink your pink lemonade somewhere quiet. Then, once you’ve handled your low blood sugar issues, Mr …,” she squinted at the letters scrawled in felt pen across the box, “…G-for-Grumpy and S-for-Sourbuttocks, then come join me, the mayor, the councilors and about fifty-thousand visiting dignitaries and celebrities in the main courtyard. Just behave yourself!”

Thoroughly fluffed and furbelowed, Grumpy Sourbuttocks grabbed his lunch. 

“Seriously, Sanzo: if you want us to have any chance at scoring those new bylaw protections, you must repress your temper and act like an amiable gentleman. This is politics.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He whipped around and stalked off.

After more crowded pathways and smelly humans than Sanzo had ever wanted to encounter in his life, the front of his trousers were suddenly gripped by a toddler’s fingers and smeared with something oily, white and sticky. He was just about to unleash the full power of his invective in the child’s face when he heard Kanzeon’s unmistakable cackle and caught a glimpse of her. She was down the path behind him a short distance, laughing at some flunky’s joke, but it wouldn’t take much to shift her attention to him, and if she did, he knew she would find some way of carrying out her ballroom dance threat. She would make it essential. He needed to find some other way to release all this aggravation that had built up over months and months and years, really, all his life’s work ….

Sanzo veered off the path. He cut across the lawn, through groves of shade trees, and found his quiet spot behind a pile of rusty iron rubbish, no doubt left over from some dismantled foundry or other. The city had been hit particularly hard over the past quarter-century, and Cressy Park was an attempt to revitalize the city’s old industrial region. So far it was working. Most of the island had been reclaimed, even if there were pockets left of ruined, burned-out, smashed-up wreckage. It was a work in progress. The abandoned warehouses were a hit with the arts and hipster set, and the entire county wasn’t washed out under an acrid haze of weird birth-defect-inducing mauve smoke anymore. There, Sanzo found a piece of iron from the heap that was flat enough to sit on, so he planted his bottom on it. Then he did another unthinkable thing. He directly violated Bylaw 4897, Subsection C, and lit up a smoke in a public park. If anyone had a problem with it, they could eat his shorts.

He was just sitting there, smoking and seething, when his inner tranquility was invaded by a presumptuous stranger. 

“Hey there.” The stranger waved. “Mind if I join you?”

Sanzo was just about to tell the stranger to piss off and go fuck himself, when he caught a closer look. The young man had one of those deceptively ageless appearances, with a lean, boyish body, light brown hair and an honest face. It was just the sort of face that Sanzo liked: wide open and sunny looking with big eyes that took in everything.

“Suit yourself,” he sniffed, most certainly not looking at him.

The young man planted his bottom on the opposite end of the flat stretch and tested it, wriggling around in a way that he couldn’t possibly know Sanzo would find distracting. Sanzo continued pretending he didn’t notice. 

“It supports weight,” the young man said. “Both our weights. I didn’t think it would. Cool.”

Then why’d you sit here? Sanzo almost asked, except he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want an inane conversation about anything with a stranger, but he especially didn’t want an inane conversation about sitting on things. 

“Tell me.” The guy looked straight at him. “What do you think of this spot?”

“What?”

“This place, the park, do you like it?”

Sanzo stared at the guy. He couldn’t have possibly known who Sanzo was, so his question probably wasn’t rhetorical. “What do you mean?”

“Say you had a kid,” the guy elaborated. “And you wanted to take him to a park. Is this the kind of place you would take him?”

Sanzo looked around. 

“It’s no ballpark.” He shrugged, stubbing out his cigarette. “But it adds green to the area, which cools things down in the summer. It’s central, so it’s good for gatherings. It’s large. It’s got playgrounds. It’s got trees and grass and water. It’s got staging areas. The lawns are big enough that a fellow could organize a ballgame if he absolutely had to. And it isn’t the bombed-out wasteland it used to be.”

“Playing ball is really important to you, huh?” 

“What?”

“Ballgames?”

“I couldn’t give a sshhh‒I actually don’t care if there’s games or not. But if I had a son, then that would probably be different. Kids like to, I think.”

“Oh? What was your favourite game when you were a kid?”

Sanzo never played a ballgame in his life, except at school where it was forced on him in phys-ed. He never mixed well with others, hated being a kid, and this conversation was veering too closely into personal revelation territory for comfort. He shifted his seat a bit before admitting, “I didn’t play games when I was little, but I don’t think that was normal. Most kids seem to like them.”

Then, because it didn’t look like the guy was about to leave or stop yapping, and he wanted to steer the target of this pleasant chitchat shit away from him, he asked, “What about you?” 

It definitely wasn’t because he was interested.

“I don’t remember my childhood.” The guy looked sad and … Sanzo didn’t know the word for that expression. Rueful? No. Grim? Sort of, but not quite. Wistful? Too wispy and sentimental. After the long interval of speechlessness that ensued, the stranger said, “My only memory of that time is lots of snow, and bars on a window, and it was cold and dark, but outside it was white and light.”

“Jeezus! Were you locked up in a prison somewhere?”

The guy’s laugh was sad. “Yeah, I know. That can’t be right, or it has to be just a fragment, but it’s the only image I have when I try to remember.”

His fingers were loosely laced together, and he had leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs and dangle his hands between his knees. Whenever he got ready to speak, his thumbs twitched, signaling a half-chewed thought. 

“I don’t think I would’ve liked ballgames much, though. Not unless they were spontaneous kick-the-can or capture-the-flag sort. They sound too … I dunno, they kinda sound like what some adult thinks a kid would find fun, rather than what a kid actually finds fun.”

Now this was interesting. Sanzo ground out the cigarette butt under the sole of his shoe and paid attention. “Then what do you think a kid would find fun?”

“I know, hey. I’m an adult, too, so who am I to talk, right?” The guy’s head tilted back, as though he was looking up at the clouds sailing past in the sky. “I think kids like to run around and throw and catch and play games well enough, just not with a whole bunch of rules. Some are okay, but rules get to be kinda like prison bars and hold things in. Except they don’t really. Adults think rules keep kids from acting like savages, but you always get the sneaky ones who break the rules when adults aren’t watching them anyway. So might as well let kids make up their own rules and play their own games and have fun.”

Sanzo snorted. 

“It’s a good thing the park doesn’t have any ball courts.” He lit up another cigarette.

“When I first came here, most of this place was hidden under heaps of scrap iron and crumbling buildings.” The guy looked around. “It was going wild.”

“The original park was the size of a single block.” Sanzo knew all about this. He pointed east. “That would be the area where you’ve got the rows of big trees in the middle, although they were blighted for years because of the fumes. Most of them had to be pulled out. Then, in the 1980s when Crestover and ACME left, the northern end of the island went feral. Within short order, the other businesses closed down, and for most of the 1990s, the place was industrial waste. The only people you would’ve found here were the feral sort.”

Homeless — which might end up happening to him if things carried on the way they’d been going.

“That would be when I first got here, or when I start remembering things.” The guy’s hair looked ridiculously soft and silky. Some strands refracted hair-fine rainbows in the early evening sunlight. Sanzo resisted the urge to riffle his fingers through it. “But you’re right; people had been using it as a dump for years. There were even a bunch of old abandoned busses.” 

“Then you know what happened.”

The guy nodded.

Sanzo had arrived to New Avondale fresh out of university and internship in the late 1990s. He started off as Kanzeon’s subordinate in Core Revitalization, and had been there ever since. 

“I used to comb this island for salvage,” the stranger explained. “There was so much stuff lying around. You'll probably laugh at me when I tell you most that it was high-quality garbage: solid metal like brass and steel and iron; cogs, wheels, chains; chunks and slabs of real stone, glass, ceramics and wood—real materials, tactile stuff, not too much of the modern materials. So I started making art out of it.”

“What makes you think I’d laugh at that?”

“Because it’s sort of a weird reason to become an artist, kinda like I just fell into it.”

It sounded exactly right to Sanzo. That’s how he ended up where he was. 

The guy got up, put his hands in his back pocket and gave a little stretch, arching his back. He had nice, supple muscles, not chunky. 

“There were all these heaps and piles of garbage everywhere, and I had nothing to do, so I started organizing them into piles, and then I started making patterns out of different shapes and things, and then I started arranging the shapes into objects that looked like things. Part of it was because it felt like a crime leaving this stuff out to rot, like I was breaking faith with something, breaking a promise about … I dunno, unrealized potential, or some crap like that.” He noticed Sanzo staring at him, and mistook his scowl of concentration, because he suddenly stopped, gave a sheepish grin, and said, “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

Sanzo only had to turn his head around. Most of the rubbish had been cleared out over the years. Only a few patches of it, like this one, remained. “A little order isn’t such a bad thing.”

The guy fell silent, considering. 

“No, a little order isn’t so bad,” he finally agreed. “Except when there’s no more space for children to have a little free play or artists to fall into art, then the rules and order get to be‒”

“Oppressive.” Sanzo finished his sentence after the guy’s voice trailed off. He ran a finger under the heavily starched collar and bow tie of his pleated dress shirt. “Like a tux on a hot day.” 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“If you like the park, better take a good look around. It won’t be here in another year.”

“What?”

“You haven’t heard? PRC is moving its headquarters to Avondale, so it’s all jobs, jobs, jobs. They want to build their skyscraper here. This festival is Cressy Park’s swan song.” Sanzo could taste bile, but after Kanzeon’s warning, he dared not spit. With his luck, she had his buttonière wired for listening in and, knowing her, to administer electric shocks as a type of aversion therapy. She probably had her thumb poised at the ready above some sort of activation button, ready to zap him. 

“Why here? Why this place?”

“Ultimately?” Sanzo had to take a few deep breaths to keep the migraine at bay. After years of meetings, counterproposals, offers of infrastructure construction, taxation concessions, land development concessions, detailed handling of every consideration that was thrown at city council, and it boiled down to this: “Because they can.”

“Seriously? They couldn’t find some other place?”

“This was the only spot they said would make the move economically viable.”

“Man, that blows chunks.”

“And it isn’t true.” Sanzo couldn’t stop the contempt. “Other places would’ve worked fine. There’s the old gully with the dried up creek. There’s the place where the stockyards used to sit. There’s the East Village.”

“I don’t understand that kind of thinking.” The guy turned around, reached down, gripped the place where he had been sitting and gave it a little shake, like he was testing it for wobbles. Sanzo found this kind of weird, even if it held firmly enough. It would take King Kong to make this iron bend. “Why spoil things for everyone else when you don’t have to?”

Sanzo figured that was a rhetorical question. 

“In another …” he glanced at his watch “… half-hour or so, I have to attend a little ceremony where Cressy is handed to our new overlords.”

The guy looked straight at him. “And where will that happen?”

Sanzo’s head turned over his shoulder. “Just west of here about a couple hundred yards, over where you see those people gathering.

The guy nodded. 

“Might see you there then.” He gave a little wave and started walking away in the other direction.

“Yeah, maybe,” Sanzo muttered, turning his attention to the paper picnic bundle. The sponsor’s provender was surprisingly tasty. Liberal applications of mayonnaise never let him down. And if it was poisoned or drugged in spite of Kanzeon’s assurances, maybe he’d have the pleasure of barfing it up all over PRC’s CEO at the signing ceremony. After he was finished, he crumpled up the paper and tossed it into a cast iron garbage bin which was conveniently located next to his bench. Nobody would see him, because nobody was there.

At least he thought nobody was about. 

“I’m reporting from Cressy Park, where the Syringa Festival is in full swing, and what a spectacular day it has been so far, Kouga.”

Sanzo jumped. He peeked through some gaps in the rubbish heap. When he saw who it was, he recoiled so suddenly, he ended up banging the back of his head on an overhanging piece of metal with a faint dong-a-longalonnnnggg.

The television announcer wore a fire-engine red frilly top with matching shoes and lipstick. The va-va-voom power of her blouse was mitigated somewhat by a white seersucker bolero jacket with short sleeves and jeans, but there was still a lot of Marilyn Monroe about her. 

“As you can see, from the livecam shots and video clips, there have been free balloons and popcorn for the kids. The Main Stage has been jammin’ with terrific music all afternoon. Northlands Antique and Vintage Car Club outdid itself with this year’s Show-and-Shine and has set up a special parquet floor for an old-fashion sock hop for you 1950s greasers and bobby-sockers. The votes are being tallied for this year’s winner of the Sun-and-Salsa competition. I would encourage everyone to stop by to enjoy this event, as perennial audience favourites, Papa Geppetto and the Topo Gigios bring their World-Cabaret-Big Band Swing fusion style tonight.” 

Lirin Maoh usually sat behind the evening news desk, but tonight, KFIB had unleashed her in a public park. If she was yapping live on-camera to fellow anchorman and real-life stepbrother, Kougaiji Maoh, that meant the thundering hordes wouldn’t be far behind.

Kougaiji had to be yammering some questions over that receiver stuck in her earbud, because after a long and silent pause, she spoke again, “Yes, people will soon be gathering here for the big moment. This is it, Kouga: the official agreement negotiated by the city and PharmaReitCorp which is to take place in a special ceremony at seven o’clock. The tables are set up in the courtyard. Peace officers are stationed everywhere. They're expecting a huge turn-out, maybe even some protesters.” 

Sanzo decided he should move to an even more secluded area of the park before he hit someone. Or just bite the bullet; he had no idea why he had to show up for this sham performance, anyway.

There was another long pause before Lirin said, “Of course there is always some controversy with new changes, but Cressy Park was only re-zoned as a public space within the past twenty years. Prior to that it was an industrial site, and the Mayor states there is no reason why it shouldn’t return to that function. We aren’t talking about a factory. This would be an office tower complex. People complain because they’ve gotten used to having a park in the middle of the city, but there’s no reason we can’t rebuild it somewhere else.” 

Sanzo couldn’t help himself. 

“Actually, there is,” he shouted through the rubbish. “There are lots of reasons.”

“Huh?” Lirin turned around. She couldn’t see Sanzo. If she turned toward him, she had her back to the camera and he was in shadow. If she turned to the west, the sun was in her eyes.

“Read the minutes of the Civic Planning Meetings for the past three years. They are all on public record. There are all kinds of good reasons we can’t rebuild this park anywhere else‒”

“I’m having trouble with my receiver, Kougaiji.” 

“‒All kinds of limitations, space, expense, time, process, access, distance—not to mention that there are no comparable sites for a public park anywhere nearby, whereas there are no valid reasons to build a skyscraper on the middle of an island in a river which is a public use area which thousands of the public use every day.”

“Yes, it’s outside interference,” Lirin chirped at the cameraman. “So I’ll let you cut away to more scenes from today’s festival here in Cressy Park.”

The red recording button on the television camera winked out and she whirled on Sanzo. “Who are you?” 

“Genjyo Sanzo, New Avondale Public Works. I thought you were supposed to be impartial when you report the news.”

“What are you implying?”

“That reason for rebuilding Cressy Park elsewhere, I want to hear it.”

“Simple: it’s about the economic renewal, silly.”

“So? Build the head office in the East Village. The land’s cheap, easily accessed and it will actually renew the area instead of destroying it.”

Lirin wasn’t listening to him. She was winding up her microphone cord and listening to her receiver. 

“Yeah, I got it,” she said to someone. “We already got the site set up. We just need to shift the camera over.”

Deaf ears, Sanzo realized. That’s where his words had been falling all along. Did anyone except him give a shit about this park?

He picked up his ass and walked it over to the courtyard. Maybe if he was lucky, a meteor would plummet from the heavens and hit the CEO of PRC in the H-E-A-D.

Kanzeon was laughing at another flunky when Sanzo was ushered to his chair. That was fine. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone. The less he said, the more chances he had of not committing mass murder and mayhem.

“Fuckin’ phosphorus, Friggin’ beryllium, Asshole thulium, Sucknut astatine,” he recited the Table of the Elements under his breath, and resisted the urge to kick the seat of the chair in front of him in rhythm.

At precisely two o’clock, a marching band played a quick tattoo in the pavilion, which was followed by the mayor getting up and blah, blah, blah, followed by a, “Let’s have a round of applause for Lady Gyoukumen Koushu.”

Clap, clap, clap followed by more blah, blah, blah, delivered in the simpering voice of Lady Koushu, CEO. There was a moment where one of the flunkies started to choke and someone pounded him on the back until he was led away, and then there was even more blah, blah, blah interspersed with a stupid joke about swallowing more than a person could chew, “And, now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for …”

Oh, fuck! Were they really going to have their contract folders carried up to them by little page-boys in livery like ringbearers marching down a church aisle during a wedding? 

Yes, they were. This was the end of civilization. Nothing beautiful would ever exist on this planet ever again. Sanzo was so sunken into the tarry armpit of misery, he almost missed the moment when a loud mechanical clatter sounded from the rubbish heap where he'd eaten his lunch, interrupting the little marriage ceremony. Kanzeon looked at him, curiously, but he shrugged. It sounded like a roller coaster climbing up the tracks. Maybe the rubbish was finally falling over. 

Suddenly, one of the priggy little pageboys dropped his contract folders, started screaming and pointing, turned and ran away. He was followed on his heels by the other. Then people in the audience cried out in surprise, although not necessarily in fear.

This was more interesting. Sanzo sat up and started to pay some real attention. He even craned his neck higher to see what was going on.

Behind the head table, above the marquee, a huge iron animatronic dragon head on a long iron neck bobbed and swayed. It was about the size of a massive roller coaster, and the neck rippled and rolled exactly like a snake about to strike. 

“Oh.” Sanzo blinked, impressed. So that’s what the boys were afraid of. That was kind of silly since the thing was clearly a mechanical object and far enough away not to hurt anyone. If Sanzo was the laughing sort, he would’ve chuckled about now—especially since there was another loud rattle from the southwest, and a gargantuan animatronic phoenix erupted from the ruins of the old Crestover Foundry parking lot, flapping its wings. 

After more surprise, the expressions of shock turned to delight. There were audible ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’. 

“Did you do this, Sanzo?” Kanzeon murmured aside, clapping her hands.

“Wish I had.” Sanzo was trying so hard to not smile, it was nearly making his eyes water.

The prevailing westerlies, which were not excessive or even strong, suddenly blew over a series of tubes and pipes in the Phoenix’s throat, causing it to let out a musical sound like enormous panflutes. It was a hauntingly magical sound.

“Gotta admit, it’s a great use of old scrap,” he murmured back at her.

“What?”

“All that scrap metal which had been left to rust. The stuff we’ve been trying to clear away for years, and it was too heavy, too much, so we were going to do it bit by bit?”

Another rattle, this time to the southeast, and another huge sculpture lifted out of the ground. A skeletal horse, like an iron horse of Hades, tried to paw its way out of the very earth, tossing and rearing.

This one also caused a few cries of alarm because it was so startling and had appeared so suddenly, and there was a whiff of brimstone and inferno about its appearance. Its enormous hooves thumped and pounded on the grass with a rhythmic cantering sound. Hydraulic pumps from the old factory moved the hooves, and puffs of air were released from its nose, just like a horse’s huffs.

By now, the entire park was engaged in the show with people running from one spot to the other. Peace officers were warning people to back off to a safe perimeter, talking through their walkie-talkies. They looked as confused as Sanzo felt, so they hadn’t been let in on the surprise, either.

“How could you not know about this?” Kanzeon’s skepticism dripped off her.

“How could I know? Where would I get the money? Or the expertise?” Sanzo rose to his feet to get a better look at the sculptures. “And why would I do it now, while we’re shutting down the place? What a waste.”

Another sculpture lifted itself from the riverbank to the north. This sculpture was a massive waterwheel and fountain covered with brightly enameled fish that spun as the wheel turned, releasing streams and pinwheels of water. The fish looked like they were jumping upstream. As the water flew and trickled down, they flowed across glass containers of different lengths with chiming thrums like glass harps.

Three more sculptures followed, each as delightful as its antecedent. One was of the Sphinx which stood at the entrance of the maze. Another was of a vast lily blooming on a stalk, lifting out of the center of the park’s main flower bed. The last was not as large as the others, but every bit as impressive: a conveyor belt train of iron nanny and billy goat sculptures trip-trapping alongside the bridge. 

When it seemed obvious from the delay that there could be no more sculptures, and the show was over, the dragon started to breathe a plume of fire from its mouth, and all the sculptures seemed to dance or spin or flip. Lights flickered across them and around their perimeters like fireflies. The show went on for nearly fifteen minutes. Then when that was over, the sculptures stopped burning, swaying, flapping, champing, twirling and trip-trapping and sank back into what looked like shapeless chaotic heaps of scrap iron rubbish.

A face flashed into Sanzo’s mind: the young man he had spoken to earlier. The piece of iron that he had sat on, which he thought was rubbish, turned out to be a cross-member of the dragon sculpture.

“I think I know the guy who did this,” he told Kanzeon.

“Yeah?” It took a lot to impress her, but somehow the guy had. Her eyes were shining. Her cheeks were rosy. Her lips were pulled into the happiest smile Sanzo had ever seen on her face. 

“Son Goku!” A voice interrupted him.

“Who?” They both turned around. Sanzo immediately recognized the source of the voice. He had consulted with Dr. Cho Hakkai, the Artistic Director of the New Avondale Museum and Art Gallery on various civic projects over the years.

“It’s an original Son Goku work,” said Dr. Hakkai who had been sitting and was now standing right behind them. Everyone was standing. “It’s a-a—um, let’s see here, I would call it a ‘process-driven, site-specific, kinetic, scrap metal Aeolian Harp installation’ by Son Goku. He’s one of the most famous (or infamous depending on who you speak to) installation artists in the world today—like Banksy, only more spectacular and complicated and usually a lot bigger. People, that is to say, cities and countries, pay millions for his sculptures—when he puts them up for sale. Usually, though, he mounts protest works which are not meant to last. 

“Oh, come on!” Hakkai burst out at their vacant headshakes. “I’m sure you’ve heard of him before: Putin On the Ritz? His most famous political satire piece? The 10-storey projection of Vladimir Putin naked in bed, eating crackers and drinking aftershave? Every time the police located and busted up the digital projector a new one started up in a different place? He was tried and sentenced in absentia to four years of hard labour in a Russian Gulag for that.” 

“I guess they’d better not catch him, then,” Sanzo shrugged.

“Catch him? Nobody’s ever seen him. Nobody knows where to find him. Oh, they’ve tried. In some circles, he’s about as popular as Julian Assange. But he’s a complete and total recluse.”

“How does he sell his work, then?” 

“Through an agent who, also, has never met him before.” Hakkai turned to the head table and, flashing a completely insincere-looking smile at Lady Gyoukomen Koushu, started to clap and shout, “Bravo, Lady Koushu, bravo! What a magnificent and precious gift. Not just one original Son Goku sculpture, but seven. How generous. Bravo!”

On cue, other people began to clap and cheer until the entire park sounded like a rock concert. 

Lady Gyoukumen Koushu did not look happy about it at all. Her face was like a stone, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her hands clenched into white-knuckled rage. 

“Heh-heh-heh.” Sanzo let out his first chuckle in years while she stalked off. 

“Watch out with that.” Kanzeon dug a warning spiked heel into the toe of his shoe. 

Sanzo dropped the glee just in time as the mayor stormed up and hissed at Kanzeon. “Find this Son Goku. Find him! And make him take it down. Make him cart it away. Make it so this never happened.” 

As he stomped off, Kanzeon muttered, “You heard the man, Sanzo.”

“Me?” Sanzo flicked some fluff off his sleeve. “You heard Hakkai. Nobody knows where to find this Son Goku. Not even the Russians.” 

The Russians may not have known where Son Goku was hiding, but Sanzo had a pretty good idea. At first, he wandered over to the Dragon Seat. There was nobody sitting there, but there was a white envelope that had been left on the place where he had sat earlier.

“Another show tomorrow evening,” the note read, “Good luck!”

Sanzo grunted and slipped the paper into his trouser pocket. 

He took a closer look at the heap of scrap iron. Now that he knew it was capable of transforming into a sculpture, he could see how the pieces were connected together and not just lying in a chaotic mass. Ball-joints allowed for the flexible movement. Most of the sculpture had retracted underground somewhere, which meant that it fit into some sort of subterranean compartment. 

It was the same with the other sculptures. Either they looked to the unfamiliar eye like the heaps of scrap metal which filled the landscape of Cressy Island before its transformation, or they disappeared but for a track or a few cables and chains and pulleys—even the goats, and the only place they could’ve gone was underground, to the ‘Underworld’ as the parks and rec people called it, parks and rec people and those who'd helped him rebuild the island called it. 

Everyone was aware of its existence. You could see a line of narrow, busted-out windows which could just be glimpsed above the berms and through the bushes from the northern riverbank, the remnants of the basement and sub-basement floors that had been dug into the island. Rumours always swarmed around dark, dank and abandoned urban spaces, and this was no exception: hauntings, wild animals, half-eaten corpses, psychotics, unearthly yells and howls. Most likely some old winos trying to shiver through their delirium tremens, or junkies between fixes, Sanzo figured. There was one old guy that used to rewire or disconnect the electrical boxes in abandoned buildings, wouldn’t go anywhere near the pumphouse. He said it was more than his life was worth, but Sanzo wasn’t the superstitious sort. The pumphouse was used mainly as storage for park maintenance now, loaded with mowers and cultivators and chainsaws. There was a trapdoor in the floor. Sanzo lifted it. He couldn’t even see the bottom. A steep wooden staircase with narrow steps disappeared into the murk. 

Even for a fellow who didn’t spook easily, Sanzo figured there had to be a better hour to come calling. Gloaming, he thought it was called. 

He carried a flashlight, but didn’t trust them. The batteries never lasted long enough, and if dropped or knocked about, they had a weird way of shorting out. He didn’t fancy being stuck in an old basement in the dark, not because he was afraid of psychotics, but the idea of stepping in a rat’s nest wasn’t too appealing, or a snake den, even if it was just a bunch of harmless garter snakes.

Sanzo set his uneasiness aside, flicked on the torch and climbed down. The corridor was every bit as dirty as he expected, with layers of graffiti already fading over crumbled walls, dirt piles and other filth on the floor, cobwebs, darker rectangles and squares of shadow. He could see spiders and heard the scrabbling of rodents. The place smelled like rotten plants and damp earth, but the weird thing was the strange pressurized sensation he felt below the ground, as if his head was being slightly squeezed in a vise.

At the end of the corridor was the black rectangle of a portal into a wider room. Any door it may have once held had been ripped from its hinges and discarded. He felt a tremor of revulsion crawl up the back of his neck as he walked toward that black nothingness, nearly stumbling as his toes caught in an old scrap of folded cardboard.

Just as he drew near the doorway, he caught ghostly noises like voices speaking through rain barrels, along with an odd sound like fat spitting in a deep fryers and rhythmic bangs. It was only when the distorted ‘wahr-wahr’ of saxophones and trumpets began that he realized the musical portion of the evening’s planned events had started in the park. The spitting deep-fryer sound was actually applause. Somewhere above him, Kanzeon was forcing some poor sap in a tux to follow her while she danced to Papa Geppeto and the Topo Gigios. 

The sound was coming in through a window with bars on it, which could only be seen because it was a slightly lighter shade of black than the light-eating darkness around it. Sanzo’s breath hitched.

Sanzo pictured a boy staring through those bars at the white world beyond, and how cold that room would’ve felt. This was one hell of a place to experience one’s only memory of childhood, especially if it was in winter. The weight drew his eyelids down, filled him with sadness and pity, made his own childhood, with all its aggravations and petty incidents, happy and carefree in contrast, and compelled him to release a heavy sigh. 

As he slipped into the open area, Sanzo glimpsed something which made him regret he’d allowed Kanzeon’s earlier threat and the music to distract him. A black shadow flitted from one wall to behind a pillar almost supernaturally fast, fast as thought—so fast that he couldn’t swear he saw it at all. 

Of course, if someone was down here … He tried to force calm and sense over his thumping pulse—of course they would be nervous about someone walking in on them. Of course they would hide.

“Goku?” The flashlight’s beam telescoped toward the column. “Son Goku? Is that you?”

Outside, noise and laughter, lights and dancing. Inside, quiet as a tomb. 

“It’s me, Genjyo Sanzo. We spoke earlier today, remember? I wanted to thank you for your statues.”

The movement, almost undetectable, was felt in the small hairs on the skin more than seen with eyes or heard with ears.

He was pretty sure that the straightforward young man who had spoken to him would not feel the slightest hesitation about approaching him after that introduction. Whoever was racing around in the shadows, whatever it was, didn’t feel quite human to Sanzo. It moved too swiftly, silently, fluidly.

Spontaneously, Sanzo flicked the flashlight to his right in time to catch the yellow reflection of light in eyes— animal eyes with convex slit pupils, baleful as starved cats, and no signs of reason or recognition, just a vacuum of impersonal brutality and wildness in an otherwise human face—Son Goku’s face, although now decked out with long hair and fangs. 

All this took a split-second to process. Before a second thought could form, a siege-force cannonball of a blow hit him directly in the chest, knocking him onto his back, which in turn, knocked the air from his lungs, collapsing them. They were so thoroughly crushed, he couldn’t even raise a wheeze and had to pump his entire body like a bellows to force air back into them. Before he could draw a fully deep breath, however, the creature jumped onto his chest with inhuman strength and speed, flattening his lungs agains. It raised a fistful of knives— no, of talons—sharp enough to lobotomize. 

“Goku.” Sanzo could barely speak. 

The creature paused, tilted its chin to the side. Was it recognition? 

Sadness surged through Sanzo, not for himself, but for the kid who grew up in an abandoned industrial dump, if that was even possible. The stretch it took to grasp that concept was a little too far for him to reach.

“Goku.” Sanzo slowly dragged a few gentle fingers down Son Goku’s stomach. It backed off, shifting its weight onto its knees—not enough to release Sanzo entirely and he didn’t lower his hand, but Sanzo was able to sit up, sling his arms around Goku’s waist and sink his head against his chest. The creature’s heartbeat, directly under his ear, pounded like an overheating engine, then softened and slowed as its muscles loosened from their taut state of hyper-imminence and gradually relaxed. 

Then, as the warmth from their touching bodies spread, filling the void, Goku’s body sagged and grew heavy. 

Sanzo didn’t dare release him. Nor did he dare hang on too tightly. It wasn’t until a small snore fluttered over the top of his head that he figured it was safe to ease Goku to the floor. Even this generated some noises and interrupted breaths, and he didn’t want that creature to wake up. So he lay beside it and kept his arms around it to keep it warm, gentled, reassured and fast asleep.

It took a good hour and a half, as measured by the end of the evening concert and the display of fireworks which followed, before his own pulse slowed to normal and breaths grew long and deep. He considered himself very lucky he hadn't come across this creature when they were going off as the explosions and banging would not have helped. Soon after that, he dozed off. 

It was the warmth and relative softness of another body in contrast to the cold and hard-packed floor and the feeling of soft hair under the palm of his hand which eventually woke him up. Golden morning light came in through the barred window, but wasn’t enough to dispel the murk entirely. Goku, who had been passively lying awake next to him, and apparently staring at him for some time without trying to wake him, had returned to being the young man Sanzo'd met. Sanzo immediately started, pulling away and sitting up.

“Mornin’,” Goku said. “Uh … did anything—what happened here, last night?” 

“You don’t remember.” This was just his luck. Like a bad soap opera, the guy probably thought he … Sanzo refused to follow that thought further. “You went ape-shit on me. I calmed you down. Nothing else happened. Don’t get funny ideas.”

“What sort of funny ideas?”

Sanzo stared. The guy didn’t look like he was being ironic. 

“I need some coffee.” He got up and started brushing off his rumpled tux and tails. There was no question he looked like someone who’d passed out on a park bench after a bender, so now there was nothing to do but face the Walk of Shame to his car, except, “You don’t actually live here, do you?”

Goku looked around. “Here? I don’t know. I always wake up here, and I come back here at night because I don’t know where else to go. But I don’t remember what happens in between.”

“Who looks after you?”

“Me? No one. I look after myself.”

Sanzo absorbed that. 

“How do you get your food and clothes? Where do you go in the day? How did you learn to make art? Who taught you to talk?” He was getting impatient. 

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I learned to make art by making it. I learned to talk by talking to people.”

Sanzo huffed. This was too farfetched. Obviously, the guy had to know more than he let on if he went as far as setting up protest installations in Russia or dealing with clients through a proxy. 

Still, he looked around; this was one helluva shit hole. 

“Grab your things.” He took off his jacket, loosened his bowtie, and unbuttoned the top three buttons of his pleated shirt. The top hat had rolled into the corner during the previous night’s attack. He picked it up, dusted it off and pulled off the ribbons. “We’re going.”

“Cool! I haven’t got any things. Where are we going?”

“My place.”

As they made their way back into the sunlight and across the park, the place was still full of people. When he crossed the bridge to the parking lot, he noticed some trucks with satellite dishes and network logos. 

“Looks like you’re a popular guy.” He pointed them out to Goku.

“Huh?”

“Word’s already gotten out. Something must’ve gone viral on youtube.”

Goku blinked at him as he unlocked the doors. “You didn’t tell them about tonight’s show?”

“I didn’t have time. I went to find you and got knocked on my ass by Mr. Hyde.” Sanzo walked back to the driver’s side.

“Who’s that?”

“You don’t know?” Sanzo opened his door. “Get in.”

He started up the car and pulled out of the lot. The downtown core was busy, but since they were heading out, traffic was with them. It was only when they were on a main artery that Sanzo finally explained, “There’s a book about a scientist, Dr. Jekyll, who wants to unlock primitive strength within the human body, so he drinks some kinda chemical cocktail and turns into Mr. Hyde, a big fucking brute with no self-control. Then he goes out on a rampage, kills a few people, messes things up, and eventually turns back into Dr. Jekyll.”

“Sounds like a good story.” Goku looked interested. “How did you meet Mr. Hyde?”

“Looking for you.”

“What? No way! How d’you get away?”

“I didn’t.”

It took a while for the meaning to sink in.

“Are you saying that I’m&ndash?”

Sanzo flicked on the signal for a left-hand turn and shoulder-checked before switching into the middle lane. 

“I didn’t know.” Goku’s voice sounded dreary and glum. “I don’t‒”

“You don’t remember,” Sanzo finished the sentence with him. “I know. When you change, you're a completely different person. It’s not you.”

“Are you saying I turn into a gorilla like King-Kong? Or Godzilla, or something?”

“No, you still have your face and body. You don’t grow to an enormous size. You stay the same shape, but with claws and sharp teeth and long hair. Your eyes turn into animal eyes and glow. Pretty fucking scary.”

They left the wide river valley which comprised the boundaries of New Avondale’s Core region and entered the suburbs. Sanzo’s condo was less than five minutes away. Goku was drinking in the passing scenery, eyes wide, head swiveling at every new sight. He looked especially wide-eyed at the sight of a huge plastic model of a soft ice-cream cone placed on a pillar next to a dairy bar. 

“You get superhuman strength and speed and flexibility: a killing machine. And it’s not you. You didn't recognize me. You weren't acting human anymore. The creature you turn into, it’s some kind of savage, wild … demon. You fucking nearly killed me.”

“Oh.” Goku swallowed hard. “Sorry.”

Sanzo shrugged. His driving had sped up, though, and he pushed through a yellow light. He was a bit more aggressive about changing lanes, too. 

“How did you stop me?”

It took a long time before Sanzo finally gritted between his teeth, “I hugged you.”

The words were barely audible.

“What?”

“I hugged you, okay?” Sanzo shouted, leaning on the horn and flipping the bird at a driver who cut him off. “Satisfied?”

“Okay … okay.” Goku looked scared. 

“And we will never, ever speak of this again. Got that?”

“Okay. Jeez.” 

After he took a shower, Sanzo packed up his formal evening wear to drop off the drycleaners. He turned on the television set, poured himself a coffee and switched to the morning news. 

“The city is buzzing with the surprise anonymous donation of seven original sculptures by acclaimed artist, Son Goku.” He turned up the volume. “Originally they were thought to be a gift from Lady Gyoukumen Koushu, who publicly denied any involvement later.”

As it cut away to a recorded statement from Ms. Koushu’s spokesman, the telephone started to ring. 

Sanzo ignored it until the voice message recording ended and Kanzeon started yapping, “Pick up the phone, Sanzo. I know you’re there.”

He picked it up. “What do you want?”

“Did you forget something? It’s a work day today.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Then what are you still doing at home? This place is going crazy. I’ve got the mayor screaming at me every ten seconds. I’ve got reporters breathing down my neck. I’ve got a run in my pantyhose. What on earth gave you the idea this was a good time to take a holiday?”

“It’s not a holiday. I quit.”

Silence. 

“Let’s not be hasty‒”

“Nothing hasty about it” Sanzo pulled a cigarette out of the telephone stand drawer and lit it. “This has been a long time coming. Yesterday was the last straw. Today, I woke up and thought ‘Fuck it!’ People get the city they deserve. If they don’t want to fight for this place, why should I? I’ve been at it for&mdashwhat? Ten years now? No, wait, fifteen. Fifteen fucking years! A fucking waste of time. So fuck them. Fuck Cressy Park. Fuck the mayor. And fuck your stupid pantyhose. I quit.”

Sanzo heard her tell someone, “He sends his regards.”

He was just winding up to let out another blue barrage when she got back on the line. “Good for you, Sanzo. I wondered how long you were going to stick around before you finally got sick and tired. You lasted longer than most and did more than anyone. It’s not worth the golden handshake.”

Sanzo spluttered, choking on his swallowed words.

“Good luck to you, and let me know if you need a letter of commendation. I'll be happy to vouch for you anytime, anywhere.”

And that was it. It was over. He sat there and let the phone hang and the cigarette burn to its filter before he was called back to reality by the sound of the sliding glass doors over the balcony. A fresh breeze wafted through the room as Goku stuck his head in and said, “That sounded serious.”

He got that right. It was huge, and it had just been lifted from his shoulders. It felt like he was about to float away. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with all this sudden freedom. He wasn’t used to a day when he didn’t have to file for injunctions, apply for grants, fill out a thousand pieces of paper, strategize, organize and run meetings and discussions, negotiate contracts, procure equipment and supplies, coordinate field crews, plan schedules, work out payrolls, contracts and pick through hundreds of thousands of codes, bylaws and other pieces of legislation just to get basic things done. It was like trying to push boulders uphill. 

Not only that, but he had made no time for anyone outside of work. He had no life outside of work. No friends, no family, not even sex partners. The last time he’d had sex was in college. He didn’t even like the guy that much, but that wasn’t the point. He’d been alone for years and too stressed in the last few to even consider anyone as a potential partner … fifteen years. He didn’t even know how to meet people. And now, just as he was quitting his job and needed to start meeting people, Goku just kind of fell into him. 

Sanzo thought about it. The guy was attractive and had just the sort of personality he liked—the only type of personality he trusted … a little. He was a bit child-like and immature in some ways, or ‘gauche’ as Kanzeon would say, but nothing time wouldn’t smooth out. The talk-talk-talking and constantly asking questions was definitely irritating, but not a crime; Sanzo would rather someone ask than do stupid things because they didn’t know and were afraid to find out. He was good company, and Sanzo really, really liked him. A person couldn’t beat that honest, straightforward, candid sort of openness. 

There was just the outstanding issue of that crazy-assed thing he turned into. What was that about?

Sanzo suddenly knew what he was going to do with himself on his first day off the job. He was going to look up Son Goku on the internet and try and find out as much about him as he could.

After an hour of that, he closed his laptop, head swimming with images of IMF riots, police crackdowns, trials for dissent, art theory, philosophies of aesthetics and stories of feral children. 

“You clearly weren’t raised by wolves,” he announced after making them a breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, toast and orange juice. 

Goku nodded in agreement before reaching into his plate with both hands and shoveling the food directly into his mouth. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mowgli! What are you, an animal? Fuck! We use knives and forks and fucking table manners in this house.” The food was gone before Sanzo finished speaking. 

“How can you tell?” Goku asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and then, letting out a huge belch.

“What?”

“About the wolves?”

Sanzo shook his head. “Go take a shower. I got another idea.” 

Forty minutes later, they wandered in through the front doors of the New Avondale Civic Art Gallery. It was still a smart building, but had seen better days. The front was definitely designed to be an edifice, with Palladian-inspired columns and porticos, but the exhibition space was filled with contemporary art. 

While Goku eyed a garden-set piece of Neptune and water-nymphs romping in a fountain, constructed entirely of differently coloured bubblegum, chewed, stuck all over with candies and unchewed, Sanzo consulted the receptionist, “I need to speak to Dr. Cho Hakkai.”

“Is he expecting you? Do you have an appointment?” 

“No, but tell him that Genjyo Sanzo from Public Works is waiting here for him. We met last night. I’ve got someone he’ll want to see.”

The woman dialed a number and spoke quietly into the receiver. After a moment, she replaced it. 

“Dr. Hakkai will see you directly, Mr. Sanzo. Let me buzz you through.”

She opened the door into the secured area of the building. “Just go down the hall and take the elevator at the end to the top floor. He’ll wait for you there.”

Goku was unusually silent during the walk and trip up. All morning, Sanzo had been scarcely able to string thoughts together because of the incessant bleating of why, why, why, how come, how come, how come. Sanzo couldn’t help wondering what had changed, so he snuck a peek and noticed that his mouth was full. He thanked heaven for small mercies as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

Hakkai was strolling gracefully over to meet them, dressed in a meticulous suit and tie that set off the elegant lines of his body. His jacket was untied, and he had tucked a hand in one pocket. The lanky red-haired guy at his side wore casual clothes and kept issuing orders over a walkie-talkie. Sanzo had met him once before, but they had rubbed each other the wrong way, so he’d made a point of forgetting Sha Gojyo’s name.

The moment Goku laid eyes on them, he gave a garbled shout and ran over. There were greetings and hugs and, “A recluse, was it?”

Sanzo’s voice was uptight. His shorts were uptight. He was starting to feel the pain in his temporary crown.

“Ah, yes.” Hakkai turned toward him. “The circumstances called for some slight dissembling. Kanzeon Bosatsu was practically accusing you of having staged that incredible feat of Sabotage Performance Art. It wouldn’t do if you were held responsible.” 

“That was some show you put together, kiddo.” Gojyo reached over and ruffled his hair. 

Goku made a sound of protest and squirmed out of his grasp.

“So, the big production which messed up the handover ceremony last night, that was your doing?” Sanzo wanted some answers.

Hakkai was very clear and emphatic. “No, but I knew it wasn’t yours, either. Look, why don’t we go out for lunch? There’s an Indian restaurant that serves Moghul dishes just around the corner. The most delicious Khorma Shai you’ve ever‒”

“We ate.”

“Their glasses of chai are heavenly.”

“I drink coffee.”

“And the private rooms are comfortable, quiet and spacious with enough seating for everyone, without a lot of distractions for the easily distracted …,” Goku had stuck his arm in the ornamental aquarium, like he’d never seen one before in his life—something Sanzo could see as possible—and, curious, was stirring the water into a whirlpool to see if the goldfish would get dizzy, “… and they are very, very private.”

Sanzo blinked. 

“Did I mention they are private?”

“Lead the way.”

Through the lobby, Hakkai observed, “Our Neptune seems to have lost the middle tine on his trident.”

Sanzo shrugged. Was that supposed to mean something?

After steaming glass bowls of sweet cardamom milk tea were placed on their table, Sanzo said, “Start talkin’.”

Hakkai daubed his mouth with a snowy white napkin. “How much do you know about your friend here?

“I have no friends. If you’re talking about Goku, do you mean him, or his freaky alter-ego?”

“Ah.” Hakkai took a deep breath. “So you know that much.”

Gojyo gave a low whistle. “Mind if I ask how you survived that one?”

Sanzo froze.

“He hugged me,” Goku mumbled, still chewing.

Gojyo’s mouth fell open. “That must’ve been some hug.”

Sanzo started listing the periodic table of elements to himself again. 

“If I tried that with you, Hakkai, do you think‒?”

“Not now, Gojyo.” Hakkai pulled out his tablet and called up the PharmaReitCorp company website. 

“I’ve already seen that.” Sanzo couldn’t stomach another round of the slick public relations video which boasted of the company’s success in pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial implants and prosthetics, fertilizers, chemical coatings and genetic research.

“Right, and their computer system is on a closed access control network, completely in-house, impossible to hack unless someone gets into the actual room where the mainframe is situated‒”

“Hang on.” Sanzo choked on his tea. “We’re hacking into PRC?”

“Nothing quite so Machiavellian.” Hakkai didn’t even look up, but kept typing in passwords and access codes. “But if one has the capability of hacking into the computer system of a client company, then there are certain areas of protocol which are shared, such as the employee directories of their R&D departments.”

A photo filled the screen of a black-haired man, whose eyes looked completely dead behind their glasses, in spite of a twisted smirk across his jaw. He looked scruffy and in need of a good wash. 

“Dr. Nii Jianji,” Hakkai passed the tablet over to Sanzo. “Chief Geneticist and Engineer.”

Sanzo did not take the tablet. He didn’t have to. “Mad scientist.”

“Basically.”

Their discussion was interrupted as plates of chapatti and pickles were carried in, along with pakora with raita and dhaniya chutney.

“A mango lassi for the young gentleman.” A sloe-eyed waitress dressed in a blue-green silk sari embroidered with peacock feathers set a glowing yellow-orange glass next to Goku. The colours vibrated against each other like a tropical flower, and she was so pretty.

“Hey, will you be my Mango-Lassie?” Goyjo barely refrained from reaching over and patting her on the ass.

The waitress’ smile stiffened.

“Like she’s never heard that one before,” Goku scoffed. “Back off and leave our serving person alone, before you wind up with a lapful of this lassi instead. Unlike you, I don’t enjoy it when offended serving people spit in my food.”

The waitress’ eyes widened in horror.

“Ah-ha-ha!” Hakkai’s laugh was brittle and pointy. “We’re all in such high spirits today. I suppose now is the wrong time to mention how useful drinking straws are for emergency tracheotomies.” 

The waitress couldn’t leave fast enough. Even Sanzo started to edge out of his side of the banquette. 

“We were talking about the latest advances in genetic engineering research.” Hakkai’s smile gleamed even wider. 

Sanzo froze.

“What’s a trache-trachoty‒um … what’s he talking about?” Goku muttered to Gojyo, who didn’t appear to know either.

Sanzo tapped the tablet. “How did you find out about this?”

Hakkai’s smile took on beatific proportions. “My sister was kidnapped, and I got a lead that she had ended up in his laboratory, so I went to rescue her.”

Sanzo swallowed hard. “And how did that go?”

“No, this is enough.” Gojyo intervened, slinging his arm over Hakkai, and squeezing his hand with the other. 

“I don’t want you to do this.” Gojyo shushed Hakkai, and started pulling him away from Sanzo. “This is a story nobody should have to repeat, so this will be as far as it goes. Look, Mr. Whoever-you-are, he doesn’t owe you anything: we aren’t going to talk about what he found when he went to rescue his sister, or how he got to her, or what happened next. I’m not going into details about the screaming and thrashing nightmares, the injuries that took months to heal, or the other pieces I’ve had to pick up, because this isn’t about me. For him, I would do it all over again, but I can’t let you do this to him. So, don’t ask.”

That was fine with Sanzo. “Okay, if that’s taboo, let’s get on with what happened after you rescued your sister.”

“Rescued.” Hakkai glanced at Gojyo. “I’m afraid it didn’t get that far. I‒uh ….”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Yes, I’m afraid that part of the story is a bit— So, moving along: by the time I emerged from the foundry, it was as though a bomb had gone off.”

“The foundry? Wait! You mean, Crestover?” 

Sanzo figured he needed something stronger than chai. 

“Dr. Nii’s laboratories were set up in the sub-basement floors of the abandoned Crestover Foundry. They were destroyed by the time I left, however, or so I thought. It wasn’t entirely my doing, although I did my best to operate as a one-man special forces commando, so I can’t take full credit. Somehow, in my haste, I released an innocent-looking young man from a cage in one of the labs and told him how to escape. By the time I was finished, the entire upper floors of the foundry had been pulled down, and this young man was sleeping it off in a corner of the basement.”

Sanzo had always wondered about how the foundry had fallen. He was told that it was a fire, but there were no charred remains. “You saw him pulling it down?”

Hakkai shook his head.

“So how did you know it was him?”

“I didn’t. I put two-and-two together when I saw him transform in Russia at the Putin-on-the-Ritz installation. The only reason I survived was because I had been knocked out cold by a chunk of ice falling off a retaining wall. He was fast asleep by the time I recovered. The incident was called a terrorist attack.”

“Okay, so PRC got chased out of the foundry and their labs were destroyed. Now I know why the location of their office towers had to be Cressy Island, and nowhere else. But if their labs were destroyed, why would they want to move back?”

Hakkai polished his fork with his napkin before he said, “I never saw Dr. Nii while I was working my way through the basement and subfloors. It’s possible—no, it’s probable that there’s a subfloor I missed. There’s some unfinished business they need to complete.” 

“How can you be so sure?” 

“How?” Hakkai tapped the tablet. “This is the client company we’ve trojaned.”

Sanzo craned his neck to read, “Maoh Cryogenics. Cryo‒ As in&ndash?”

“Lady Gyoukumen Koushu’s lover died about fifteen years ago, just when cryo tech was starting out.”

“So you’re saying there’s a freeze-dried corpse somewhere in a sub-basement lab under Cressy Park, and this colossal, pain-in-the-ass dicking-with-a-dry-dildo I’ve endured for the past five years was all about reviving him?” 

“Pretty much.”

“I want to fucking burn the place!”

Hakkai stopped smiling for the first time.

“While I understand your sentiments, I suggest you leave this task to me and Goku. It isn’t that I doubt your sincerity, but your experience in such things is‒” Hakkai giggled. Sanzo was very afraid.

“I want to be there when it burns.”

The other three exchanged a conspiratorial look.

“I got another show planned for tonight,” Goku mentioned. “So I have to show up anyway.”

Hakkai looked at Gojyo.

“I dunno, man,” Gojyo’s eyes looked a bit sharper than usual. “This is goin’ into some pretty heavy karma territory for you.”

“It would clean up some loose ends,” Hakkai sipped on his tea. Sanzo noticed that he slipped his pinky finger over Gojyo’s. “I do hate untidy things. They have a way of coming back and‒” he hissed and grimaced instead of spelling out the dire consequences.

“Do you really think it would settle things?” Gojyo said. “Or would there just be another loose end to tidy up?”

Hakkai looked lost and pitiful. 

Gojyo threw up his hands. “Whatever you want to do. If this will help you, um, close the past or something like that, I’m in.”

The three looked at Sanzo, who felt a bit deer-in-headlights.

“No time like the present,” Hakkai said.

Sanzo shrugged. “Fine.”

“So be it. Tonight, then.”

Sanzo finally drank his cold chai. “Tonight.”

There was some planning involved, as much to do with the fact that the island was papered with news reporters, as it was about acquiring explosives in order to demolish whatever underground chamber had been left behind. Sanzo had always considered himself a logistics freak, but he was nothing compared to Hakkai. 

A major area of concern was where the underground chamber might be hidden. Tunnels criss-crossed the island. There were several underground chambers, which housed the submerged sculptures Goku built.

Goku, it seemed, had an idea about that.

“Not under the Phoenix, surely?” Hakkai look dismayed. “I don’t care for the omen in that.”

“No way,” Goku said. “Under the Sphinx, because he’s a mummy.”

“But you didn’t know.”

“Not me ….” Goku left the sentence dangling. 

As they were getting ready to leave, Gojyo pulled Hakkai to the side and, with his arms around his waist, gently rocking, whispered some quiet and affectionate words to him. Goku stared at them inquisitively while Sanzo threw a bill on the table to cover his drinks. 

After they left the room, Goku turned to him and asked, “Sanzo, are Gojyo and Hakkai‒”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Can we‒?”

“Yes.” Sanzo didn’t need to think about it. He already had, and now he decided. It was time. If Goku wanted it, he was game. “C’mon. We’ve only got a couple hours before it’s showtime.”

“Really?” 

“Yes.”

“You’re really going to let me‒?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, that’s great.” 

And Sanzo figured it was pretty great, too. He didn’t even mind when Goku reached over, as they were walking through the parkade, and squeezed his ass.

In fact, spending the afternoon working up a sweat and making out with each other was the best possible thing they could’ve done to keep their minds off the evening’s impending adventures. It had been so long since Sanzo had even had the urge for sex that there was a lot of pent-up sensation he needed released, but he was so thoroughly and well fucked that there wasn’t a knot left in his body. His limbs felt loose and relaxed. His stomach wasn’t tight. His jaw wasn’t tight. His ass was now the least tight of all—quite possibly the loosest in New Avondale.

As for Goku, he was bouncy and very pleased with himself, as Sanzo figured he should be, but not bouncing off the walls. It was like the act of caring for Sanzo in this way gave him some maturity and depth that had been missing before. 

It was seven o’clock when they met at the bridge. Nothing could’ve prepared them for what they saw. Police had cordoned off the access points to Cressy Island, and bulldozers and backhoes and other heavy excavation equipment was lined up, ready to make the crossing. But people had ignored the barricades and were wading through the shallow lagoons by the dozens. There were about four or five hundred on the island already, being chased around by the cops, and more were piling over by the minute. Television stations had sent cameras. Even KFIB had its crew out, and Sanzo was pleased to see that Lirin Maoh wasn’t the reporter tonight. 

The only difficulty this presented was in establishing a safe area for the subterranean chamber’s implosion, especially since they weren’t a hundred percent sure where that was. The last thing they wanted was to have some bystander swallowed up in a sinkhole. 

Gojyo had been put in charge of crowd control, and the last Sanzo saw of him as he led Goku and Hakkai to the Pumphouse, he was strutting across the grass like an impresario, arms opened wide, yelling, “Is everyone ready for a show, tonight? Hey, you guys, let’s hear some enthusiasm. Fuckin’-A’! Are we ready?” — and people greeting this with cheers.

Sanzo found the Pumphouse occupied, as he expected, but by field and maintenance workers from the Parks and Rec Department And from the reception they gave him, it didn’t look like Kanzeon had passed along the message that he had quit. 

“Where were you? We missed you.”

“Boy, did you ever skip out on the excitement.”

“Talk about timing your holiday just right.”

He turned to the foreman, Peplinski, and asked, “No cops?”

“Naw.” Peplinksi grinned. “They wanna take away our park, why do we gotta make things easy for them?”

“So what’s the deal?”

“They want us to show them where to crawl down into the Underworld. So far, everyone’s like: ‘I dunno, Peplinski, do you know where the old access to the foundry is?’ ‘I dunno, how about you Manuel?’”

Manuel piped up, “I dunno. Say, George, have you seen that place?”

“No way, man!” said George. “I heard they got flesh-eating disease down there. Last time a guy went down, he came back up covered with big black boils, like the bubonic plague. How ‘bout you, Jacky?”

“I heard it was raw sewage. I’d never try it without Hazmat.”

“Okay, thanks.” Sanzo interrupted this before it went the full circle. “Tell you what, we’ll take it from here. If some official discovers you’re congregating in this building, they might figure it out?”

Peplinski nodded. “I guess we could go around for another tour of the park and poke at the lawn with sticks. You know, pretend we’re hunting for that elusive door.” 

“You guys are in uniform. Maybe try and keep people from the places where the sculptures came up last night,” Sanzo suggested. “Just in case we get another performance tonight, especially near the maze. Steer them away from that place altogether. I got a bit nervous with how close people were. Last thing the city needs is a huge liability suit because some bozo decided they wanted to climb on something unstable.”

After a few more pleasantries and suggestions, they were finally alone. Sanzo immediately bolted the Pumphouse door. Within another minute, Hakkai and Goku set off down the corridor. Sanzo was left behind to stand watch. Goku was all set to start up his statues, and Hakkai hurried off to find the hidden chamber and destroy it. 

For the first time since he’d wandered onto Cressy Park for the previous night’s handover ceremony, Sanzo was left alone with not much to do. It was the first time he felt he could draw a deep breath all day. In fact, he wasn’t used to it. The silence and waiting made him feel fidgety and anxious, and there was so much of it. He could hear the voices outside but felt disconnected from what was going on, what with standing watch.

Yellow-orange sunlight, sunlight the colour of mangos, flooded in through the narrow windows to the west, and dust motes swam in them. It smelled dusty, too, and like dried grass from the mowers. Instead of looking creepy and sinister, at this hour of the day the old pumphouse seemed fusty and tired. 

A glance out the windows revealed that the crowds had swelled considerably. There were even more people gathering tonight than there had been on the previous night, and it was a very different sort of crowd, too. This crowd was younger and tougher, and they looked like they didn’t mind if things got rowdy, whereas the police didn’t seem prepared at all. Why would they be? New Avondale had never experienced a riot before, not even during the Depression.

And still the minutes passed. Sanzo glanced at his watch: only two minutes, so far. It wasn’t reasonable to think that the show would begin for another ten or fifteen minutes. It couldn’t be easy for Goku to set up all those mechanical automatons. Nonetheless, the longer Sanzo waited, the more nervous he felt. 

He kept getting this strange prickling sensation on the back of his neck that filled him with dread, as though he was being watched. It was the way prey must feel which knows it is being stalked by a tiger, except when he looked behind him, there was nobody there. 

All the same, Sanzo decided to trust his instincts. He hadn’t thought to carry any weapons, not even a pocket knife or nail file for gouging skin. He glanced around. The only things that seemed like they might work were a couple of the garden implements resting against the wall: a pitchfork and, if it was sharp enough, a scythe. There was a whet-stone on the windowsill. Sanzo picked it up and started sharpening the blade of the scythe with long, shriinging strokes. It reminded him of stories about Russian soldiers in World War One, expected to rush machine-gun nests with pitchforks and scythes. For all his wiry muscles, he wasn’t a strong man. He would’ve preferred to carry a gun.

… tick, tick, tick … 

So it didn’t come as all that much of a surprise when he finally heard the sound of a match striking, from the north-northeastern area of the pumphouse, behind a support pillar and stacks of boxes. He refused to rise to the bait, even when his unseen adversary started to chuckle. He simply continued to sharpen the scythe and glanced in the periphery of his vision for reflections in windows or on metal handles, or for shadows on walls. 

“Genjyo Sanzo,” the voice smarmed. “Who would’ve ever thought you would show some spine?” 

So, the guy was trying to provoke him. There was only response for that: Sanzo poogled his ear with his pinkie. 

“Do you honestly believe a few statues are going to stop us?

It’s worked so far, Sanzo said to himself.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the rows of earthmovers waiting to roll in.”

Sanzo figured he had something of an earthmover himself, although he hoped it didn’t come to that. At any rate, statues and even Cressy Park had fallen in importance next to the mission that Hakkai was on. Goku’s moving sculptures were a great distraction, keeping attention away from what Hakkai was up to, especially if it seemed that the loss of those sculptures filled Sanzo with dismay. The problem was that Sanzo wasn’t that good of an actor. He simply couldn’t pretend he was someone he wasn’t, and he wasn’t someone who could converse easily with people he despised.

“And the police,” The voice droned. “They’ll be ready to arrest Son Goku when he comes back up.”

Good luck with that. Sanzo ran the stone along the whole length of the blade with a particularly satisfying sshriingng.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious as to who I am?”

This was his cue. ‘Nii Jianji’ was on the tip of his tongue, but Sanzo realized in the nick of time that it would give the game away. “I don’t need to know.”

“That’s probably right, but how boring.” 

“My thought, too, and why I didn’t ask.” 

There was a snort of amusement.

“Since you’re so anxious to tell me,” Sanzo said. “Apart from being one of Lady Koushu’s toadies, who are you?”

Nii’s laugh almost sounded mirthful. 

“I’m a ghost,” he murmured.

Not yet, but soon.

At long last, before he was tortured further by the inane babble, the dragon sculpture started to uncoil from the ground. Sanzo was ready to admire it, but not so much that he let down his guard—for just as it started to climb and sway to tremendous applause, Nii Jianji made his move. Sanzo was ready for him and met him with the scythe, its blade hooked dangerously close around the guy’s neck.

“You’ve got it wrong, Sanzo. I’m not armed. Not this time.”

“Well, I am, just in case you’re full of shit and like a good head-fuck more than anything.” Outside, the phoenix sculpture started to flap its wings. The cheers were like those at a packed arena during an exciting ballgame. Or he figured that’s what they would sound like if he ever went to one.

“Heh, smart decision, but a scythe won’t stop a police constable’s sidearm.”

“It will stop me from having to endure you. Leave.”

“Suit yourself.” The geneticist sauntered away. “But just so you know: my leaving this shed is the sign for the bulldozers to move in.”

Sanzo kicked the door closed behind him and bolted it fast, just as the horse statue started to gallop.

Nii was right about the bulldozers, but for now, something was stalling them. Sanzo couldn’t see very clearly from this spot on the island and at this distance from the bridge, but rocks—round river rocks seemed to be flying. Not that it would stop a bulldozer, but the rocks were aimed at the drivers, who were unshielded. They weren't sitting in armoured personnel carriers.

Sanzo was so intent on reading the riot, he failed to notice that all seven sculptures were now up. It was such a different experience to watch them from this angle. He was much closer to the fish, the Sphinx and the lily now. 

Suddenly, there was a massive FFfffwooooMmpp! as a hill suddenly appeared under the Sphinx, and then sank back into the ground. At last, Hakkai had dynamited the chamber. Slowly, the soil caved in, leaving a fair-sized crater. 

Another realization hit Sanzo like a wave of nausea. He wondered if Goku and Hakkai had moved quickly enough to avoid being damaged by the explosion. He flung open the trap door and was about to head off in search of them when he heard them running up to him.

“How did you get here so fast?” He almost yelled with relief. At the sight of Goku’s face, he had the odd experience of feeling his heart.

“Timed charges,” Hakkai explained, panting for breath. “Although I miscalculated how long it would take to run back by a few seconds. I didn’t want to risk having huge parts of the island cave in on us, or to have the explosion suck up all our oxygen.”

“Good thinking. It looks like Gojyo did his job well, because it doesn’t look like anyone was hurt.” Sanzo watched as Hakkai took in this information. “But we had company.”

“Who?”

“Doctor No.”

“Well, well,” a familiar voice gloated. “I didn’t think you knew who I was.”

“The door was locked.” Sanzo saw Nii’s shape reflected in Goku’s eyes. He couldn’t tell if he carried a gun.

“I opened the window before we had our little chat. Sorry. Figured it was only polite since I’m a smoker. No, I’m still not armed. I don’t actually need weapons if I want to hurt someone. I just came to warn you.”

“Your lab’s history.”

“I noticed. That will annoy Lady Koushu, but it’s neither here nor there for me. She was just an employer with an interesting test subject. The test subject, however, meant a great deal to her. In fact, you’ve liberated me, for if anything went wrong during the test—well, let’s just say it’s a bit stifling to work under such constraints. At most, I lose an employer until I find another, whereas you’ve gained a very powerful enemy, and I don’t expect there will be a lot of people in New Avondale who will thank you either. PharmaReitCorp, for all its problems, did mean jobs.”

Outside, the sculptures had finished their dances and began to retract and retreat. 

“I suppose it’s time to call off the bulldozers.” The shadow of Nii in Goku’s eyes turned away. “Goodbye, gentlemen.” 

And then it disappeared. 

There was a collective sigh of relief.

“What a dickhead.” Goku shook his head. 

“I’ve got to go collect Gojyo,” Hakkai said. “Now that I’m no longer in immediate danger of committing murder.”

Before he could finish that thought, Gojyo had decided to join them. The flash of his red hair shone by the windows and his broad heavy tread thumped on the board walk outside the door. Like a shot, he was inside and had Hakkai in a big bear-hug. Hakkai let himself be picked off his feet and swung around in the hug, and then, when it was over, Gojyo stuck him back on his feet, cleared his throat, wiped his eyes with a complaint about the dustiness of the shed, and they all walked outside together.

“We'd better be going,” Sanzo agreed. “I'd rather not stick around to be arrested.”

“Why?” Hakkai asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong, did you?”

“Except for breaking about a half-dozen bylaws or so, and probably some explosives-related charges.” As they left the Pumphouse, Sanzo looked at the sunset. “In fact, it might be a good time to skip town for awhile, go on a little roadtrip.”

“Yeah, that sounds fun,” Goku’s face lit up. He started bouncing up and down again with excitement at the idea.

“I’m due for a long sabbatical,” Hakkai considered. “If we all leave together, we can split costs and driving. I have that Range Rover that’s been sitting in the garage.”

“Heh! I’m calling shotgun,” Gojyo said.

“I get car-sick in the backseat.” Sanzo replied.

“I’m hungry,” Goku said.


End file.
